


the sky burns red against your skin

by EmmaArthur (EchoBleu)



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Post Alex kidnapping, Prompt Fill, Tumblr Prompt, not chronological
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:02:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24405490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoBleu/pseuds/EmmaArthur
Summary: A series of connected prompt fills. Alex left Roswell to dismantle Project Shepard, four years ago.
Relationships: Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Comments: 22
Kudos: 98





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Based on prompts from this great [list](https://emma-arthur.tumblr.com/post/618485333865185280/64-sensory-prompts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 20: Reflections in glass.

Alex grabs his filled mug with a nod for the barista and makes for his usual booth in the corner. He sits down heavily, his mug making a dull sound as it hits the table. The seat is covered in fake leather that quickly heats up under his thighs, not an altogether bad sensation. Alex extends his leg under the table, wraps his cold hand around the warm drink and leans his head against the window frame.

It's snowing again, and the snow latches onto the sill, leaving wet, grainy spots on the glass. Alex watches the snowflakes fall for a moment, then lets his gaze refocus on the outside, the people in heavy coats and boots hurrying down the street under umbrellas and the cars speeding down the wet, shining street.

The café's lights catch his eyes in the window's reflection, brighter than the stormy sky outside. Alex takes a sip of his coffee and follows the hands of a woman, in the booth closest to his, typing away on her laptop. He can tell the laptop brand and operating system just from the fuzzy reflection, but he looks away, conserving her privacy over her work. A child's laughter resonates over the low rumble of conversations, then the next name called at the line.

Any other time, this place would feels cozy, a little haven of warmth in the cold city. Alex used to dream about New York, about Los Angeles, every big city where he could melt into the crowd and become something else than what his father wanted him to be. Once, he would have loved this, maybe. But he caved, a hand around his throat, and became a good soldier instead. A monster from a family of monsters.

There is no warmth for him now. No anonymity, and certainly no dreams. Only a shred of peace in atonement, if he's lucky.

The reflection makes him jump, and he curses himself for letting someone get so close. He sees the hat first, further away than he first thought, a safe distance still. He brings his leg back under him though, ready to move if he needs to.

The hat is still covered in tiny white snowflakes, melting by the second.  Hats only make  Alex think of one thing, these days. He sees him everywhere, between the tall buildings, so different from the desert roads and the streets of Roswell. Every man in a dark hat is a reminder. But few New Yorkers wear real cowboy hats.

The swagger is a dead giveaway, one Alex would recognize anywhere. He doesn't turn away from the window, as Michael approaches, hands in the pockets of his worn jeans, backpack on his shoulder. Michael stands there for a second, then  slips into the seat across from him.

“You came,” Alex murmurs.

“You asked me to.”

Alex nods jerkily. It's been six months, but Michael's eyes still pierce him the same way, halfway across the country.

“I need your help,” he says. “One last time.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 34: The feel of fingers brushing together by accident

“What happens after I help you?” Michael asks once Alex has exposed his plan.

“It will be done,” Alex says. “Project Shepard, my family's legacy, any involvement of the military with anything alien, official or otherwise. I tracked every lead to the ground. You'll be safe.”

Michael sighs. “What happens to us? To you?”

Alex looks back at the window.  The snow is picking up, swirling around in the darkening sky. The mug in his hands is cooling, but it burns him suddenly. He grips it tighter, leaning into the pain, his knuckles turning white, his stump pushed into the socket of his prosthesis until it aches. “Nothing,” he says. “ You go home. I'm assigned here for another four months.”

Michael's left hand on the table is unblemished, rough but free of scars. Alex knows he's taken up the guitar again, but he hasn't heard him play. He strums the fingers on the table lightly, like he doesn't know what to do with them.

“And after that? Where will you go?”

“I don't know yet,” Alex shrugs. “I'll probably re-up. I have another six years to go to make it to twenty. Doesn't seem like so much, now that I've made it this far.”

Michael flinches minutely at some part of that, but Alex isn't sure what exactly.  He hates the military. Alex understands him, after what military men have done to his family. Of course he'd hate to hear it mentioned. Of course he'd hate that Alex is−still−an Airman through and through.

“It's been almost four years, Alex,” Michael says quietly. “You've been chasing down your family's legacy for all this time. Isn't it enough?”

Alex sighs.  “Is it ever?”

M ichael looks at him, actually looks at him. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, it is. You've done everything you could do. It's time to stop.” He pauses, wringing his hands together. “It's time to come home.”

“Home,” Alex echoes. The word doesn't fit well in his mouth. The concept has never fit him at all. There's no home for someone like him, only impersonal military bases and empty apartments. He's made his peace with that.

“To Roswell,” Michael says. Alex realizes that he's been silent and spaced out for long enough that Michael has a worried frown on his face.

“There's no home for me in Roswell,” Alex smiles softly.

“So you're not coming back? Ever?”

Michael's face is too open, to vulnerable. They can't do this now.

Alex pulls a piece of paper from his pocket−his receipt for the coffee, and scribbles an address on it with his Air Force engraved pen. That should have been on his uniform, he doesn't know how it made it into the pocket of his coat,  but it doesn't matter. It saves him from having to look at Michael's face crumpling.

He slides the paper across the table. “My place,” he explains. “I'll be at work most of the day, so you can go there to prepare. Make yourself at home.”

Michael grabs the paper before Alex can remove his hand, and their fingers brush briefly together. The touch burns, and yet as soon as it's over, Alex feels like a fish out of water. He makes himself stay still, despite the urge to run away.

Michael stares at Alex's handwriting on the piece of paper. “ There's no home for me  _here,_ ” he murmurs.

“No,” Alex acknowledges. He stands up, still avoiding Michael's gaze. “I'll see you tonight. Remember. Tomorrow, it's all over. You'll be as safe as you can be.”

He wishes it could be enough, for both of them. Michael makes an aborted move toward him, but he lets his hand fall back down in defeat. Alex turns on his heels, leaving his half-finished coffee behind.

But it's never enough.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 40. Gritty eyes when you stare into fire too long

The night Alex comes back to Roswell is one of those long nights that Michael has come to hate. He never did good alone with his thoughts. Work is sufficiently distracting, and he tries to hang out with his siblings or with Liz as much as possible during his days off, but the nights are bad, now that he doesn't have alien conspiracies to research.

During the long hours before he can finally manage to sleep, he has no choice but to think.

It's been four months since he and Alex destroyed the last of Project Shepard in New York. Four months since he's had any news of Alex at all. Nearly five years, now, since Alex came back to Roswell just to leave again after a few months.  And his ghost won't leave Michael alone.

On the best days, he mourns that he wasn't good enough to make Alex stay. He forgets about him for an hour here, a minute there, while he has his hands deep under the hood of a car.

On the worst days, he remembers that Alex left  _for_ him. To keep him safe. And if he forgets about it for a single second, well, that proves that he never deserved it, doesn't it?

The fire in the firepit is more of a distraction than a necessity, today. The night is warm enough to be out with just a light sweater. Michael sits in his usual chair by the pit, his back to the Airstream, staring into the flames. It's quiet out here, just the cracks of the fire and the occasional cricket, until the rumble of an engine reaches his ear.

It's a car he doesn't know. Michael squints at it as it enters into the yard, his eyes unadjusted to the darkness after so long staring at the fire. His eye sockets feel full of smoke, and the flames dance in his vision, far away from the actual fire. He rubs at his face a little when the driver comes out of the car, wondering if he's seeing things there too.

But he's not. It's Alex.  Alex and his broad shoulders, his black leather jacket, and a look in his eyes. Michael just stares.

“Guerin,” Alex says when he gets close. “Michael,” he corrects with a tiny shake of the head.

“Alex,” Michael croaks out.

Alex smiles softly. At a loss for words, Michael gestures for him to sit. “You're really here,” he murmurs.

Alex opens his mouth with a smirk dancing on his lips, like he's going to give a smart comeback, but he hesitates at the last moment. “I'm really here,” he confirms.

“You said you wouldn't come back,” Michael whispers.

Alex shakes his head. “No. I said Roswell wasn't home.”

“What's the difference?”

But Michael already knows. Of course he knows.

“I don't have a home,” Alex answers. “Not in the traditional sense of the word. But out there in New York, and before that in Nevada, and in Wisconsin, I found myself missing...something. Not a place. Just a…sense of belonging.”

“Something you have here?”

Alex bites his lip. “Maybe.”

“You're really here,” Michael murmurs again in wonder. Alex is so freaking beautiful in the firelight, siting on _his_ chair, at _his_ place.

“Yes,” Alex nods.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 25\. The smell of ozone during a storm  
> 29\. The smell of burning wood

“We should, um, get inside. It's going to storm soon.”

Michael looks up at the sky. Indeed, clouds are gathering, but not at what seems like an alarming rate. He's been a ranch hand, he knows the weather patters around here. Alex is right, but it's surprising that he caught that. “How do you know?”

“I can feel it,” Alex grimaces. He nods to his leg, but his hand in on his neck, massaging the muscles. “Humidity.”

“Right,” Michael bites his lip. “I don't get those warnings anymore,” he adds, waving his left hand.

Alex stares at his healed hand for a little too long. Michael wants to hide it. He's still not over it, not completely. He doesn't expect twinges of pain every time he flexes it, not anymore, but there's a place in his mind that won't accept what Max did anymore than it accepted what Jesse Manes did.

The air,  heavy with smoke from the fire, is starting to get that telltale sharp, pungent smell that announces a storm. Michael sees a lightning strike on the horizon, only visible because the desert is so flat. It's not going to be a big storm, but it will start raining in a few minutes, and there's no point in getting drenched. Stupid romantic gestures aren't worth Alex getting sick.

Stupid romantic gestures aren't part of their relationship, anyway, Michael reminds himself. Because they don't have a relationship.

“Where are you staying?” he asks.

Alex shrugs. “I came here straight away. My house is rented out, but I thought I could drive up to the cabin.”

Michael watches the sky critically. “You'll end up in the middle of the storm if you leave now. Besides, no one's been to the cabin in years, right? You don't even know if the generator will work.”

“Kyle checks it over for me, but not in a while,” Alex answers. “So, what do we do?”

“I go down to the bunker during big storms, but this one isn't going to be big, the Airstream should be safe.” Michael pauses, unsure how to phrase it. “We can… By the time it blows over, it's going to be too late for you to head to your cabin. So, I can leave you the bed so you can get comfortable. There's a cot down in the bunker, I can sleep there.”

“Guerin.” Alex's voice is soft, but firm. His eyes shine in the light of the fire. “I came back for you.”

Michael stops in his tracks. “What does that mean?” he whispers.

“Do you _want_ to go sleep in the bunker?”

Mutely, Michael shakes his head. He can't take his eyes off Alex, the intensity of his face like a magnet. The fire highlights the scar on his brow and the curve of his eyebrows, all those things that Michael memorized over the years. He's so painfully beautiful.

“Then neither do I. I'm here for you.”

“I don't have a lot to offer,” Michael says, and it's so much more than just the fact that he all he has is a tiny trailer and a shitty bed.

“I'm here for _you_ ,” Alex repeats.

“Okay,” Michael nods shakily.

The first drop of rain falls on his forehead.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 52\. Exhausted numbness after crying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're going back in time a bit to before Alex left Roswell. Fair warning: this is pure angst and whump.

Alex doesn't break down in the hospital.

He lets himself be checked over by a doctor who is not Kyle−Kyle is currently treating Michael's minor burns since the aliens can't trust anyone else−and he stays perfectly stoical during it all. His father would be proud. Well, no, Jesse Manes has yet to be proud of Alex for anything, but at least he wouldn't scold him. He would most certainly scold him for getting himself kidnapped, but not for being a crybaby.

Only Alex refuses to live by his father's principles, he reminds himself. It's another kind of failure, that he has to remind himself of that. He was making progress, has it all evaporated?

The intern sews up his eyebrow and splints his fingers, and tries vainly tries to get Alex to agree to be watched overnight. Alex steadily refuses. He can't wait to get out of here and into his own home. He's exhausted, he hasn't really eaten or slept in five days and his body feels numb.

“I'll take over,” Kyle tells the young intern when he finally gets there, Michael on his heels. Alex lets out a breath of relief.

“Thank you,” he tells Kyle as his friend looks over his colleague's work. “I'm fine.”

“You're not fine,” Kyle sighs.

“I'll be fine,” Alex amends, gritting his teeth as Kyle prods at his bruised ribs.

“I want someone with him tonight,” Kyle tells Michael, ignoring Alex's protests. “I'd do it, but I'm on call.”

“I'll stay, of course,” Michael nods.

“I don't need anyone!” Alex grunts, frustrated.

Kyle rounds in on him. “Alex, you were kidnapped and held for _five_ _days_. Can you at least understand my concern?”

“Yeah,” Alex deflates, closing his eyes. He's exhausted. His emotions are all over the place, too strong one moment and gone the next. He's in pain, but he only knows that because of the way his body won't obey him properly, like he's moving through jelly.

H e hasn't processed any of it yet. Deep Sky, and Forrest being part of it. The true scope of Project Shepard and it's satellites. The danger to the aliens is far greater than any of them suspected, and it's all because of Alex's family.

His own kidnapping is of little consequence. He got away just fine−he even managed to fight off the amnesia-inducing compound his captors tried to inject into his spinal cord. So what if he forgot to mention the pain radiating from his neck that makes moving it impossible? He's fine. There's work to do.

Kyle helps him into a wheelchair−his prosthesis wasn't recovered, which Alex should be furious about, it was brand new, and his broken fingers need to  heal at least a little before he can safely attempt crutches. Alex grumbles about it, but he knows there is no way he's walking out.  He even lets Michael push him  without protesting.

Michael takes him home. Alex keeps a tight grip on his mind and doesn't allow himself to think until he's safely lying in his own bed.

“I was so scared, Alex,” Michael tells him, dragging a chair closer to the bed. “I thought I lost you.”

Alex closes his eyes and turns his head away. This look in Michael's eyes is unbearable, after the year they've had. He can't take it. He can't take more of Michael looking like that, and then telling him that they're not good for each other.

If Alex has learned anything, it's that he's definitely not good for Michael, even if Michael is the single best thing that's ever happened to him.

“Please go,” he murmurs. “The bed in the guest room is made. I know you have to stay, but please give me some space.”

He feels Michael's gaze on him for a while longer, heavy and oppressing, then Michael leaves without a word. Alex curls up on himself as much as his injuries will allow.

He can almost feel the  overflow in his mind finally breach the cracks. Suddenly, the languishing numbness is gone and he is a human-shaped knot of pain, wracked with sobs. It's been five days. Five days of blocking everything out to the extent that he only really remembers the information he latched onto and forced inside his brain, while his body contained everything else. It must now even the score. Process.

He weeps furiously, pressing a pillow to his chest to counter the deep ache there, choking and hiccoughing on his own breath. Each move sends a spike of pain throughout his body, but pain is an old friend. Pain has accompanied him all his life. It's a constant, a value that can be trusted.

When the sobs recede, comes the exhaustion. Numb again, feeling more weighted down now that he's free than he even was while captive, Alex barely hears Michael slip back into the bedroom. He blinks at him sluggishly. Why is he still here?

“I'm here for you,” Michael murmurs. His face is pained, and Alex wants to hide from it. He buries his face in his pillow, but he has to come up for air, his nose clogged up by too much crying. He whines, without meaning to. “I'm right here.”

Alex falls asleep right beside Michael.

He wonders if, when he was half a world away, they were ever this far apart.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 38\. A person’s weight as they lie on top of you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm writing for each prompt rather than in chronological order, so this actually follows chapter 4, and is set four years after chapter 5.

“We've wasted so much time,” Michael murmurs, watching Alex sit down on his bed. He's happy to waste another few seconds to make them both comfortable, and Alex appreciates that. The Airstream is tinier than he remembers, and his knees are almost hitting the dresser across from the bed. It makes removing his prosthesis that much harder.

It's been almost five years since he was here last, the two weeks of near bliss that they had, their lovemaking pressing and demanding, never leaving room for talking. Everything is different, now. The sound of the rain hitting the metal frame of the trailer rhythms Alex's efforts to get his stump out of the socket, swollen by a day of travel. The leg hits the wooden dresser with a thump when he finally manages.

He forces himself to keep his eyes down as he puts the leg aside and removes the liner. He can feel Michael's eyes on him, still amazingly hungry for his body rather than put off by the process. It's jarring, finding themselves in this exact situation again, like a mirror of their last time here, except nothing's really the same. The Airstream hasn't changed much. It's a little cleaner, Alex thinks, then he realizes it's just that Michael has removed the old newspapers covering the windows. There's no alcohol in sight. It was never dirty, just a little messy, in the way a tiny space tends to get even with the best organizational skills. Michael takes care of his possessions.

Michael himself is still wearing everything but his boots, which he's kicked off. Alex wishes vaguely that he could do the same, feeling embarrassed to be down his pants already. “I don't want to rush this,” he says, just to check one more time that they're on the same page. With his leg off, in the middle of a storm, he doesn't have the option to run away, but he doesn't think that he'll want to. If nothing else, in the last four years, he's learned to stop running.

He's learned that he can, sometimes, reach for what he wants.

So he reaches down for Michael's hand and kisses his palm softly.

“No rushing,” Michael breathes, a blush coming over his cheeks. “You're back.”

“You still can't believe it, uh?” Alex teases. Neither can he, really. It will be fifteen years, next months, since that day in the shed. The evidence is gone from Michael's fingers, and yet it still scars both of their minds.

Some things have a lasting impact. Some things last for life, and they're usually not the good times. But to him, the beauty that loving Michael has brought into his life will always outweigh the pain.

He just wishes he'd been able to sort that out in his head sooner. It took a lot of therapy, hours that he has yet to tell Michael about, every week, working through it. He couldn't get there on his own, past the shame and the anger and the fucking deep hurt.

Michael sits up to snuggle against his side, and it's so far from the angry lust that used to define their time together. So far from the confused anger that replaced it. So far from everything they've been, so close to what they were that first time in the shed, before Jesse destroyed them.

Alex closes his eyes and takes it in, the rain tapping loudly and the wind getting stronger, Michael's head on his shoulder  and his curls brushing Alex's jawline.

Michael gently grabs him by the waist and, telegraphing his moves, flips them onto the bed so that he's on top of Alex. Their mouths don't crash together, but they brush, caress, graze, and finally meet. The mattress is still as shitty, too hard and and too thin, cheep foam, but Alex doesn't care much about that. His elbows dig into the bed frame, and Michael's weight on his chest makes it a little hard to breathe. He runs his hand down Michael's torso, touching, grabbing, making it real.

Making it real.

“I'm really back,” he murmurs.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 55. Finding old photographs you’d forgotten about

“Where does this come from?” Alex asks, fingering an old photograph. He just found it at the bottom of a box, on its own, in Michael's Airstream.

The troves of treasure−and trash−hidden in the depth of the trailer continues to amaze him. Michael has decided to clean it up fully, now that it's parked in their backyard and rarely used anymore. He wants to turn it back to its original purpose, to go on vacations in, but for that they need to clean up everything he's accumulated living in it for fifteen years.

Fifteen years. That's how long it took them to find their way back to each other. They've reached an equilibrium of sorts, finally, with Alex working a desk job at the base and Michael in the process of taking over ownership of the scrapyard. It's been fifteen years and eight months since that fateful day, that sent them down each into  his own dark  path.

“Um, Max took it,” Michael answers, leaning back to see what Alex is holding. “That day we all went out in the desert, remember? You, me, Max, Liz, and Maria.”

“I don't remember him taking pictures,” Alex says softly. “I like it.” They're standing together, just the two of them in the frame, each with a guitar. It was after Alex gave Michael Greg's guitar, in their last month of school. “I didn't have any picture of us,” he adds.

Michael tilts his head curiously. “Is that why you take so many now?”

It's true. Alex's phone is filled with selfies and pictures taken by Liz or Isobel, who have both quickly learned to send him any photo they take where Michael features.

“Before I came back after my injury, I'd forgotten your face,” he murmurs. “I couldn't see it in my mind anymore.”

Michael stares at him for a moment, with something indefinable in his eyes. Then he straightens up and moves over to sit by Alex on the bed. “I didn't know that,” he says.

“That day we saw each other at the Foster Ranch, that's all I could think about,” Alex says. “That I had your face back. My father was there, I was so scared and angry and sad, and yet−”

“I kept thinking of how little you'd changed,” Michael admits. “I was so relieved to see you, because I'd been terrified since I heard you were injured, and you were there and you looked fine. So beautiful. Just like before.”

Alex smiles, a little sadly, at how close and how far away that day seems at the same time. It took them five more years to get anywhere. But he can still pinpoint it as the day he knew that the yearning he'd been carrying for a decade in his heart was never going to go away, that this wasn't a wound time would heal.

“Then you told me about your leg,” Michael carries on. “That was a shock.”

“I wasn't delicate about it, either,” Alex remembers. “You pissed me off.”

“Yeah, I did. God, I was horrible, wasn't I? I'm sorry. For my defense, I'd just spent the night in jail.”

“I was _just_ back to work, and around my father ever day for the first time in a decade,” Alex pushes. “You were such a jerk.”

“Mathematically, you've got so much more than three quarters left, though,” Michael quips.

Alex groans, and Michael laughs and nudges his shoulder with his head. Alex automatically wraps his free arm around Michael's shoulders. “You're like a cat,” he says. “Now, how about we wrap this up so I can  go take off the fifth of my body that's not made of flesh?”

Michael pulls them both to their feet without warning, but he keeps his hands on Alex until he's stable. “It's really more like one tenth,” he says.

“Jerk,” Alex tickles him in the ribs until he falls back on the bed. Finding out how ticklish Michael is has been an unexpected perk of living together, and actually spending time in the same bed for other things than sex.

“You love me anyway,” Michael says between two bouts of helpless laughter.

“Yes I do.” Alex cups his neck to kiss him, in love with how completely certain they both are about it now.

It took them fifteen years, but moments like this  are worth every second they spent apart.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 54\. The moment when reality starts to make sense again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [discussion of suicidal ideation]

“The last few years felt kinda like a dream,” Michael murmurs, tracing a pattern across Alex's bare chest. The storm has abated, leaving only the soft sound of drizzling all around them on the metal of the Airstream.

“What do you mean?” Alex asks, raising his head to look at him.

“I don't know. It never felt quite real. You reenlisted, and then left, for me, and at first I thought it was history repeating itself, you know, your father was a danger to me so you removed yourself to keep me safe. But it wasn't the same.”

“How did it make you feel?” Alex's voice is hesitant, careful, like he's not sure he wants to know the answer. 

Michael shifts on the mattress, so the wooden bed frame doesn't dig into his ribs quite as much. “I don't know why it took me so long to realize that part of the reason you left was that I was with Maria.”

Alex frowns a little, but doesn't say anything.

“I was so lost, so obsessed with what your family did to mine, what they were still doing, that I forgot to think about your perspective,” Michael continues. “I mean, I never stopped thinking about you, but I didn't see what was so hard for you, how I kept putting you in untenable positions. Me and Maria. Making you choose between me and your family.”

“That's not a hard choice. You're always going to be my priority,” Alex says, almost defensively.

“Just because your family is awful, doesn't mean it's easy to let go. I didn't see that you were burdened with that guilt. I was so self-obsessed, I missed everything.”

Alex closes his eyes and worries at his lower lip, and Michael can swear he sees it  quiver . “Shit, I didn't mean for this to get so heavy,” he says, skin crawling with discomfort. But he's been working on that, too, in therapy. On not walking away from a conversation just because it gets hard. 

“No, we probably need to talk about all that,” Alex says before he can.

“Yeah.”

“I missed a lot, too,” Alex admits. “I kept getting scared and running, I get why you couldn't wait any longer.”

“No,” Michael protests immediately. “Me and Maria, that wasn't because I was tired of waiting. That's just a stupid excuse I gave you. I was...lost. So lost. In Caulfield, you would have...you would have died there with me, you didn't even hesitate, and it woke something in me, that and my mother dying. You're...what I told you about leaving the planet is true. You're the only reason I want to stay.”

“Fuck, Michael,” Alex mutters under his breath.

“But seeing my mother die, seeing how those aliens were treated, it reminded me of how unwelcome I am here. Suddenly, wanting to belong here felt like I was betraying her. It wasn't because it was your family, I _know_ that you're nothing like them. ”

“I never thought of it like that,” Alex murmurs.

“Maria was...she was there, and she was willing to give me the human warmth I needed without the hard talks, without having to actually look at my motivations. And there was so much going on, I just closed every door in your face and refused to look at reality. Until you finally woke me up.”

“Woke you up?”

“The day you got kidnapped. You told me...you told me that there was one way of off this planet for you.”

Alex swallows, looking away. “I didn't mean to say it,” he murmurs. “Not like that.”

“But you did mean it. I realized that...I was being so egocentric, thinking that I was the only one feeling the way I felt. I grew up feeling alienated from everyone, pun intended, even Isobel and Max after they were adopted, so I never thought other people could feel the same way. But you don't need to be an actual alien to feel like you're unwelcome and hated for something you can't help. At least I have the privilege of secrecy and passing.”

“Passing isn't easy, either,” Alex murmurs. “Hiding who you really are from everyone.”

“No. But I was there thinking no one could relate, and I see now just how preposterous that is.”

“Yeah,” Alex breathes.

“Do you still think about it?” Michael asks hesitantly.

“What?”

“That way of off the planet. Actually taking it.”

“Killing myself?” Alex makes a strange gesture, in between a shrug and reaching out. Michael grabs his hand almost reflexively, holding it tightly. “Not so much. The possibility is always kind of there, it's been there for as long as I can remember. But I've had a lot of therapy.”

“Good. Cause I would really hate it if you−” Michael breaks himself off, there's no word that he can put there that won't make him want to sob. “Sorry, it's no joking matter. Fuck. I don't want you to die.”

“Neither do I,” Alex responds softly, rubbing circles into the back of his hand with his thumb. “Do you? Still think about leaving?”

“It hasn't been an option since I used a ship piece for Max's pacemaker. It was never a real option, actually. Not without years of work and some serious funding. It was just something I was reassuring myself with.”

“A coping mechanism,” Alex says.

M ichael nods.

“You said the last few years felt like a dream. Does it feel real now?”

Michael takes a moment to actually think about it. “I didn't believe it at first, when you said you're here to stay. I just...I've imagined this moment so many times, but I gave up on hoping for it.”

“I'm sorry,” Alex murmurs. “I'm sorry it took me so long.”

“Don't be. We did our best. We both needed the time, even if I didn't think I did.”

“I'm not leaving again,” Alex promises.

“Good,” Michael says. “Because the world doesn't make sense without you.”

It's the truth, he thinks. His mind has a clarity in this moment that he hasn't experience in years. A world where he is with Alex is a world worth fighting for. Every time.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments make my day. 
> 
> I am also on [Tumblr](https://emma-arthur.tumblr.com/).


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